Desert Bagel: GGs

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• Previously on The Bagel: Do you have it in you to make it epic?
• Kinda funny for me to ask that question yesterday and then settle and watch Jack Draper and Novak Djokovic play the match of the tournament so far.
• Draper's elevated level at the end of the second set was a marvel, as was his spectacular choke when serving out the win. I truly thought Novak had it after that – give the man a short field and tell him he only has to go 20 yards for the win, and the stubborn GOAT will find a way. Instead, he played two quizzically bad shots to relinquish an early lead and it was Draper who was able to pull himself out of that earlier missed opportunity to secure a 4-6, 6-4, 7-6(5) win to move into the quarterfinals.
• It was a really, really impressive effort from Draper. And it included this truly bonkers 26-shot rally:

• Great match, thrilling drama. But no need to throw the word "greatest" anywhere near it. Words mean something! We must maintain discipline if we are to be taken seriously! Why am I constantly yelling! I don't mean to! Nor do I want to!

• After all the dust settled on Wednesday, you had two British men in the quarterfinals – both former champions by the way! – Carlos and Jannik still on a collision course, Learner Tien as the last American man standing (though he's kinda getting rolled by Jannik as I type this), and Daniil Medvedev quietly moving through the draw, which is a win for everyone because it means he gets the main interview room:

• As for the women, Wednesday saw two retirements from Sonay Kartal (lower back) and Katerina Siniakova (hip) and a couple of clinics from Iga and Jess. As of this writing, Aryna Sabalenka and Linda Noskova are into the semifinals to face each other — shoutout to Vicky Mboko though, who played Aryna tight in a 7-6(0), 6-4 loss.

• Iga, Elina, Jess, and Elena will decide the final two from the bottom half later. All that is to say, Aryna vs. Iga, Aryna vs. Jess, Aryna vs. Elena, and Aryna vs. Elina finals are all still the cards. Aryna and Linda haven't played each other since 2023.

• 👆 French player Matteo Martineau tells L'Equipe that he and his family also received violent threats.

Indian Wells intimidation reveals the underbelly of tennis betting

Tennis betting introduces a toxic element that has no place in professional athletics. We saw it again in Indian Wells.

The GrandstandCheryl Murray

• Must read – "Sucker: My year as a degenerate gambler" by McKay Coppins, which includes an unexpected cameo from our own Caroline Garcia and (unrelated to Caro) a very scary anecdote from the 2024 US Open. (The Atlantic)

But even the most easygoing athletes realize that the desperation of a losing bettor can lead to scary places. In 2024, during a fourth-round women’s match at the U.S. Open, in New York City, the official X account for the U.S. Tennis Association received a DM: “I’m inside Louis Armstrong with a bomb that will go off at 1 pm est.” As experts worked to determine the credibility of the threat and the NYPD quietly swept the arena for explosive devices, tournament officials considered evacuating the stadium. Eventually, the message was traced to Strasburg, Pennsylvania, where a 20-year-old man had wagered a large sum on the match. When his player fell behind, he tried to disrupt the match and void his bet with a bomb threat. He now faces up to five years in prison.

Before Garcia retired, she told me, she often found herself wondering if a losing gambler’s digital threat would escalate to physical violence. She told herself it was unlikely, but the possibility was always in the back of her mind. “You just hope that he will always stay in messages, and he will never go the next step,” she said. Her eyes drifted to some unseen point off camera. “You never know.”

• From The Second Serve, Owen Lewis on Mirra Andreeva and the stupidity of punditry:

Give Mirra Andreeva a Break - The Second Serve

After Indian Wells outburst, give Mirra Andreeva a break.

The Second ServeDavid Shaftel

Look, it’s fun to be correct. It’s even more fun to be correct first, especially about a prodigy whose peak lies undiscovered in a haze way up in the sky. The trouble is that between YouTube, Reddit, and Nazified Twitter (please delete your accounts, friends), millions of people are constantly posting opinions from sensible to outlandish. To be correct first, you almost have to egregiously overreact to a seemingly innocent result. In pursuit of The Take, I’ve seen people online compare Alcaraz to Lleyton Hewitt (back when he had only two majors and went without a title between Wimbledon in 2023 and Indian Wells in 2024). Joao Fonseca has swung from “future No. 1” to “overhyped” to “so many people think he’s overhyped that he’s now underhyped.” Expect the pendulum to swing all the way back to where it started if Fonseca can sustain the level he produced against Sinner in a 7–6, 7–6 loss on Tuesday. Abandoning our opinions at the drop of a hat seems antithetical to the point of following sports; a player you rate having a disappointing series of results should disappoint us, not persuade us to reevaluate them until their results no longer register emotionally. 

• Might I just add that this is happening to the Oscars discourse and IT IS DRIVING ME CRAZY.

• The Athletic reports that the ATP is on a buying spree, buying back a number of tournament sanctions, including Chengdu, Hong Kong, Moselle, Metz, and Moscow. It is also in talks to acquire Buenos Aires and Acapulco. This doesn't mean the tournaments are dead. It just means the ATP now owns the licenses. We can probably expect to see some significant scheduling shifts, that will impact the South American swing the most:

The Dubai Tennis Championships, an ATP 500, occupies the last week of February, along with the Santiago Open in Chile, a 250. Those events could slide ahead in the calendar, along with the Qatar Open, also a 500, but that would affect the Central and South American tournaments, including the Mexican Open and the Rio de Janeiro Open in Brazil, another 500-level event.

So the tour has alighted on clearing out some fall events. This offers the potential of a longer offseason for most players, and the possibility of moving some other tournaments from February toward the end of the season. For the license-holders of some of those competitions, which do not earn revenue close to the offers being made by the tour, selling is not a complex decision, two of the sources said.

Any scheduling permutation will fundamentally alter the landscape of tennis in South America, a continent with a rich history in the sport but without the financial muscle to stake a commensurate place in its calendar.

• This is interesting: The Australian Open is on Substack. In this house we support any organization's decision to dedicate more resources to written content.
• Fun thread on Reddit: What match made you fall in love with tennis?

• Let's hope this is just a blip. This is easily fixable for next year. (The Desert Sun)

• This is a really cool list of books to read by trans and queer writers, reviewed by trans and queer reviewers. (LitHub)

Particularly infamous was one explicitly anti-trans essay from July, 2022, which was widely criticized at the time. It also had many people wondering how Paul’s politics might have come into play in her decisions as the most important books editor in the world.

So at some point I began dreaming up an idea: to commission a whole package of reviews of books by trans and queer authors, folks whose projects weren’t covered by the NYT under Paul’s reign. I asked Maris Kreizman to collaborate and to my delight, she agreed. What followed became an exercise in thinking through what is lost—and perhaps can never be regained—when transphobes and their enablers rise to prominence as our most powerful cultural gatekeepers.

• The Tucson Festival of Books is happening this weekend and the program looks so cool. Something I would have loved to attend, so if you're in the area, check it out! The amazing and awesome Scott Price (S.L. Price) will be on a sports panel.

• Marcus Thompson II wrote my favorite Alysa Liu piece during the Olympics and here he is on shadowing Liu through New York. (NY Times)

Forced to process the inevitability of all this attention becoming problematic, Liu wonders what to do about her hair. She doesn’t want to change it. She loves it, the perfect combination of fashion statement and symbol of independence. She’s had it touched up multiple times since the U.S. championships in January, making sure her ‘do is fly for the big stage. She adds a halo ring every year and plans to keep doing so.

But it works against her need for liberation. To go where she wants.

She could don wigs and disguises. She touches her lip and points her eyes upwards as she envisions the possibilities.

The magic ingredient for Liu, though, is freedom. The feeling that she’s skating, living, above the weight of expectations instead of under it. That’s why people love her. Why America rushed to wrap its arms around her.

But how does she share her joy without losing it? That’s the delicate line she skates. Because belonging to America risks losing what makes her so appealing: that she belongs to herself.

• Bob Costas dropping the real on the state of sports punditry. (Awful Announcing)

“A lot of the time now, the person, whether it’s on the radio, talk show, or some podcast or whatever, the person who is the most vitriolic can claim to be the most honest,” Costas said. “The person who says that everybody’s a liar and everything’s bullsh*t. Cynicism is not the same thing as insight.”
...
“Healthy skepticism is a good thing,” Costas said. “(But) just looking at things with cynicism, or you’re somebody out there on the internet, but you want your audience to believe, ‘I’m the last honest man … everybody else is lying to you, but I, who have no credibility, no background and no accountability, I’m giving it to you straight.’ In its way, that’s worse than the person who’s a ‘see-no-evil person.’ Because at least they’re not telling you something that’s untrue.”

• Pokemon x Animal Crossing? I'm intrigued. (AV Club)
• I told a friend last night that I don't really have that many opinions and he laughed very loudly into my face. Fair.

The Oscars should actually award supporting performances

So-called category fraud, where second leads boast an advantage in supporting categories, does a disservice to the art of small turns.

AV ClubJesse Hassenger

• Bop of the Day: If you ever see me at an airport, just know that this is what's going on in my head.